Wichita Falls man sentenced in '86 shooting

A Wichita Falls man was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday in the 1986 shooting death of a Lubbock man on Interstate 27.

Johnny Ray Klein, 50, pleaded guilty to one count of murder in the Dec. 7, 1986, shooting death of Florencio Calzada, 31, whose body was found near Wayside Road.

Calzada, who had attended a biker gathering in Amarillo, had been shot twice in the back of the head with a .22-caliber weapon, authorities said.

Monica Calzada, the victim’s youngest daughter who was 2 years old at the time, sobbed when she told Klein she grew up without a father.

“I have waited so long for this, but I can’t forgive you,” Monica Calzada, now 27, said during Klein’s sentencing hearing. “I’m sure I will, but I have so much anger, and I hope this will ease it for my family. It will be easier, but it’s always going to hurt.”

“I’ve lived with this wall up for many years,” she said. “What you did was horrible to this family. I pray your children forgive you.”

Potter-Randall Special Crimes investigators considered the crime solved until October 2010. About two years after David Stoker was executed in the separate killing of a Hale Center convenience store clerk, a grand jury indicted him in 1999 in Calzada’s death.

Stoker told Special Crimes detective Walt Yerger he would confess if the death penalty were taken off the table, Randall County Criminal District Attorney James Farren said earlier. Yerger, who is deceased, decided the confession was sufficient and presented it to Randall County prosecutors, he said.

“The lead investigator filed a report with us indicating (Stoker) had confessed to the crime,” Farren said.

After a tipster later identified another suspect in the crime, authorities reopened the case and discovered Yerger had “inaccurately represented” Stoker’s confession, Farren said. But after Stoker’s execution, authorities — who thought the case was closed — destroyed physical evidence from the Calzada case, which included his car, Farren said.

After finding ballistic evidence that did not match, authorities charged Klein with the killing in November 2010. A Randall County grand jury indicted him in July 2011, according to court records. Farren said Klein’s third wife told her sister Klein drunkenly confessed to robbing and killing Calzada. The wife’s sister told her mother, who called former Special Crimes Sgt. Kevin Dockery more than a year ago, the district attorney said.

Dockery independently confirmed the allegation with Klein’s two ex-wives, who both said Klein told them similar stories, Farren said.

Farren said the county also hired a private investigator, Darrell Dewey, who helped with the cold case investigation.

The investigation led Dockery to Tracie Ostercamp, Klein’s girlfriend at the time of the killing who saw him rob and kill Calzada, Farren said. Ostercamp did not tell police because she feared she would be charged, but Farren said she could not be a party to the crime if she did not know Klein intended to rob Calzada.

“She can’t be charged if she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Farren said.

He said the cold case evidence left over included a bloody shirt and slugs from a unidentified gun.

“It was a crime of opportunity,” Farren said. “It was going to be a challenging case.”